what happens when the nuclear issue goes back to the security councel?

4/2/2007 3:30:39 AM

^^ gg

it needs to be on this page, and there is another one that i am posting:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2047128,00.html

Quote :

"Call that humiliation? No hoods. No electric shocks. No beatings. These Iranians clearly are a very uncivilised bunch Terry Jones Saturday March 31, 2007 The Guardian I share the outrage expressed in the British press over the treatment of our naval personnel accused by Iran of illegally entering their waters. It is a disgrace. We would never dream of treating captives like this - allowing them to smoke cigarettes, for example, even though it has been proven that smoking kills. And as for compelling poor servicewoman Faye Turney to wear a black headscarf, and then allowing the picture to be posted around the world - have the Iranians no concept of civilised behaviour? For God's sake, what's wrong with putting a bag over her head? That's what we do with the Muslims we capture: we put bags over their heads, so it's hard to breathe. Then it's perfectly acceptable to take photographs of them and circulate them to the press because the captives can't be recognised and humiliated in the way these unfortunate British service people are. It is also unacceptable that these British captives should be made to talk on television and say things that they may regret later. If the Iranians put duct tape over their mouths, like we do to our captives, they wouldn't be able to talk at all. Of course they'd probably find it even harder to breathe - especially with a bag over their head - but at least they wouldn't be humiliated. And what's all this about allowing the captives to write letters home saying they are all right? It's time the Iranians fell into line with the rest of the civilised world: they should allow their captives the privacy of solitary confinement. That's one of the many privileges the US grants to its captives in Guantánamo Bay. The true mark of a civilised country is that it doesn't rush into charging people whom it has arbitrarily arrested in places it's just invaded. The inmates of Guantánamo, for example, have been enjoying all the privacy they want for almost five years, and the first inmate has only just been charged. What a contrast to the disgraceful Iranian rush to parade their captives before the cameras! What's more, it is clear that the Iranians are not giving their British prisoners any decent physical exercise. The US military make sure that their Iraqi captives enjoy PT. This takes the form of exciting "stress positions", which the captives are expected to hold for hours on end so as to improve their stomach and calf muscles. A common exercise is where they are made to stand on the balls of their feet and then squat so that their thighs are parallel to the ground. This creates intense pain and, finally, muscle failure. It's all good healthy fun and has the bonus that the captives will confess to anything to get out of it. And this brings me to my final point. It is clear from her TV appearance that servicewoman Turney has been put under pressure. The newspapers have persuaded behavioural psychologists to examine the footage and they all conclude that she is "unhappy and stressed". What is so appalling is the underhand way in which the Iranians have got her "unhappy and stressed". She shows no signs of electrocution or burn marks and there are no signs of beating on her face. This is unacceptable. If captives are to be put under duress, such as by forcing them into compromising sexual positions, or having electric shocks to their genitals, they should be photographed, as they were in Abu Ghraib. The photographs should then be circulated around the civilised world so that everyone can see exactly what has been going on. As Stephen Glover pointed out in the Daily Mail, perhaps it would not be right to bomb Iran in retaliation for the humiliation of our servicemen, but clearly the Iranian people must be made to suffer - whether by beefing up sanctions, as the Mail suggests, or simply by getting President Bush to hurry up and invade, as he intends to anyway, and bring democracy and western values to the country, as he has in Iraq. · Terry Jones"

*************************************************************


here is one more... there are literally hundreds of articles like this out there, written by white americans and brits.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2046116,00.html

Quote :

"A peculiar outrage The treatment of Faye Turney is wrong - but not in the same league as British and US abuses Ronan Bennett Friday March 30, 2007 Guardian It's right that the government and media should be concerned about the treatment the 15 captured marines and sailors are receiving in Iran. Faye Turney's letters bear the marks of coercion, while parading the prisoners in front of TV cameras was demeaning. But the outrage expressed by ministers and leader writers is curious given the recent record of the "coalition of the willing" on the way it deals with prisoners. Turney may have been "forced to wear the hijab", as the Daily Mail noted with fury, but so far as we know she has not been forced into an orange jumpsuit. Her comrades have not been shackled, blindfolded, forced into excruciating physical contortions for long periods, or denied liquids and food. As far as we know they have not had the Bible spat on, torn up or urinated on in front of their faces. They have not had electrodes attached to their genitals or been set on by attack dogs. They have not been hung from a forklift truck and photographed for the amusement of their captors. They have not been pictured naked and smeared in their own excrement. They have not been bundled into a CIA-chartered plane and secretly "rendered" to a basement prison in a country where torturers are experienced and free to do their worst. As far as we know, Turney and her comrades are not being "worked hard", the euphemism coined by one senior British army officer for the abuse of prisoners at Camp Bread Basket. And as far as we know all 15 are alive and well, which is more than can be said for Baha Mousa, the hotel receptionist who, in 2003, was unfortunate enough to have been taken into custody by British troops in Basra. There has of course been a court martial and it exonerated the soldiers of Mousa's murder. So we can only assume that his death - by beating - was self-inflicted; yet another instance of "asymmetrical warfare", the description given by US authorities to the deaths of the Guantánamo detainees who hanged themselves last year. And while the families of the captured marines and sailors must be in agonies of uncertainty, they have the comfort of knowing that the very highest in the land are doing everything they can to end their "unjustified detention". They can count themselves especially lucky, for the very same highest of the land have rather different views on what justifies detention where foreign-born Muslims in Britain are concerned. In the case, for example, of the Belmarsh detainees, suspicion justified arrest; statements extracted under torture from third parties justified accusation; and secret hearings justified imprisonment. With disregard for the rights of prisoners now entrenched at the very top of government, it comes as no surprise that abuses committed by rank and file soldiers go virtually unremarked. No one in politics or the media dares censure the military, surely today the only institution still immune from any sort of criticism, even when soldiers are brutal and murderous towards captives. Instead of frankly facing up to the wrongs soldiers have perpetrated, officers and ministers speak of difficult work done in testing conditions, deliberate provocations, and propaganda by the enemy. We all know in our bones that soldiers and civilians in revolt don't mix. Ask any historian. Ask them about what British soldiers did in Kenya, French soldiers did in Algeria, and Americans in Vietnam. While you're at it, ask them what the RAF did in Iraq under British rule in the 1920s (gassed Kurds, in case you've forgotten). We must all hope that Faye Turney and her comrades are returned to their families safely and soon. Then perhaps we can compare their accounts of their treatment with what Moazzam Begg and the Tipton Three have to say about Guantánamo, what Prisoner B has to say about Belmarsh, and what the men arrested with Baha Mousa can tell us of his screams on the night he died. · Ronan Bennett's latest novel, Zugzwang, is published by Bloomsbury in July "

[Edited on April 2, 2007 at 3:47 AM. Reason : OMFG THESE WRITERS ARE SELF-LOATHING TURRISTS!!!!]

4/2/2007 3:44:24 AM

ah, the good ole two wrongs make it right argument

4/2/2007 7:32:07 AM

Quote :

"Tempting, but knowing them, they'd probably locate the hostages in strategic areas so that when the bombs drop, they can blame us for killing our own soldiers."

i'd take my best guess as to what they (1) would really not like to see blown up, that (2) they didn't shield with hostages.

I think a couple of ships would be good. You know, "hey, send ships out to fuck with us, and we'll start sinking them."

4/2/2007 7:53:38 AM

I'm pretty sure that 0EPII1 has had a giant hard-on since this started.

4/2/2007 8:26:46 AM

I agree with Duke.

Time for some collateral damage. Lets start with the navy

[Edited on April 2, 2007 at 8:44 AM. Reason : .]

[Edited on April 2, 2007 at 8:46 AM. Reason : spelling]

4/2/2007 8:44:09 AM

iran has a navy?

4/2/2007 1:57:31 PM

Quote :

"I'm pretty sure that 0EPII1 has had a giant hard-on since this started."

I'm pretty sure you are a fucking idiot since you were born.

4/2/2007 2:01:24 PM

Those are two good articles, but the authors strike me as the type who would have quickly dismissed anyone who said "at least no one got their head cut off" during the Abu Ghraib mess.

4/2/2007 2:15:02 PM

I'm not saying to adopt Israeli-like tactics...but I am all about responding with brutal force when someone does something like this...do unto them something worse than they did to you, and do it consistently so that everyone knows that it is never, ever beneficial (and is, in fact, ALWAYS counterproductive) to fuck with you, and that the negotiating table is where things are to be settled.

That said, we shouldn't be simply sticking our head in the sand when it comes to unfriendly countries. We don't have to make them our buddies, but refusing to talk with them is ridiculous.

[Edited on April 2, 2007 at 2:15 PM. Reason : asdf]

[Edited on April 2, 2007 at 2:15 PM. Reason : /i]

[Edited on April 2, 2007 at 2:16 PM. Reason : can't type today]

4/2/2007 2:15:14 PM

^ i agree with that 150%

4/2/2007 3:01:44 PM

Quote :

"it needs to be on this page, and there is another one that i am posting"

It is a serious embarassment for our country though. I remember how during the 1st Gulf War, Iraqi soldiers surrendered in the thousands in part because of stories of how well America treated its prisoners. Can't say that's true anymore...

4/2/2007 4:21:07 PM

What a load of bull... we treat POWs just as good, if not better, than we always have.

Give me a break. Would you rather be a prisoner of the US Army or the Iranian Revolutionary Guard?

4/2/2007 4:41:13 PM

us army no doubt

4/2/2007 4:41:41 PM

Quote :

"iran has a navy? "

yes, they have a navy, and they do a damn good job of protecting their part of the gulf from what I hear.

but can they project power like us? i think it's obvious that they can't

4/2/2007 4:44:30 PM

Quote :

"Would you rather be a prisoner of the US Army or the Iranian Revolutionary Guard?"

That's not the choice insurgents are faced with. The choice they face is "would you rather work for insurgency/al queda/whatever or be an american/or worse (rendition)/shia(if sunni)/sunni(if shia) prisoner?"

In the first Gulf War, the latter was a more attractive proposition. It's not that hard to understand.


[Edited on April 2, 2007 at 6:50 PM. Reason : 456]

4/2/2007 6:46:12 PM

Quote :

"What a load of bull... we treat POWs just as good, if not better, than we always have. Give me a break. Would you rather be a prisoner of the US Army or the Iranian Revolutionary Guard?"

so all those thousands of stories and pictures must be fake!!!

and you think that question has one universal answer you idiot? and you are asking that question to americans??? are you really that stupid?

4/2/2007 7:07:31 PM

I'm going to go with the third option bob.

I'd rather not be a prisoner at all.

4/2/2007 7:24:03 PM

Quote :

"It is a serious embarassment for our country though. I remember how during the 1st Gulf War, Iraqi soldiers surrendered in the thousands in part because of stories of how well America treated its prisoners. Can't say that's true anymore..."

yeah, even the perception that we might not treat you with dignity if you surrender hurts our cause.

Quote :

"What a load of bull... we treat POWs just as good, if not better, than we always have. Give me a break. Would you rather be a prisoner of the US Army or the Iranian Revolutionary Guard?"

Give me a break. Why are you worried about where our enemies set the bar? We're supposed to be the good guys and the ones setting the standard for everyone else. Just because we're better than some fuckhead terrorist or rogue country doesn't mean anything.

4/2/2007 7:26:57 PM

^ GG

4/2/2007 7:29:18 PM

^NG

4/2/2007 8:13:25 PM

GR

4/2/2007 8:32:32 PM

i haven't been following all this for about a week now on vacation, but even catching bits and pieces of this on TV and radio, i still haven't heard this argument from out own side:

even if the troops were trespassing in Iranian water, does that justify taking them hostage? Why hasn't anyone come out and said "hey you fucking idiots, they might have floated into your precious water by a kilometer or two, but that doesn't give you the right to capture and hold them indefinitely with no apparent ways of righting this 'injustice'"

4/2/2007 8:52:17 PM

^Iranians: You first, nignogs. Give us back our "diplomats" and we give you back your "sailors"

4/2/2007 9:03:54 PM

only their 'diplomats' weren't actually 'diplomats' and the 'sailors' are in fact 'sailors' (well except for the royal marines).

4/2/2007 10:17:43 PM

It's bullshit that the Iranians and their cohorts always treat hostages well. Read this account from former hostage David Jacobsen from a recent TV interview:

Quote :

"You can't talk to [the Iranians]--it's worthless. And look how long we talked: 444 days for the embassy hostages, 7 years for Terry Anderson, 6 years for Tom Sutherland, 5 years for Alan Steen. Bad things happen to hostages, even though they put out nice pictures that things are fine. But remember what happened to Colonel Higgins? They hanged him. I was in the room with Bill Buckley when he died; Peter Kilborn got a bullet in the middle of his forehead; Alan Steen had the heck beat out of his head with rifle butts--he's suffered grand mal seizures ever since; Frank Reeve was fed arsenic poisoning that has ruined his health. It is not a nice situation. The American public and the British public must realize that any images that come out are not necessarily the true ones. It's a dangerous, horrible situation those hostages are in."

I could find no link. This was from a TV broadcast.

If this hostage situation goes past thirty days, then I think we are looking at whole different ball game.

4/3/2007 12:49:20 AM

i seriously doubt its going to last that much longer

larinjani came out today and said there would be no trial

4/3/2007 12:51:28 AM

Actually surprised that this accusation didn't come out sooner in a major British publication.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2414760.ece

Quote :

"The raid in Arbil was a far more serious and aggressive act. It was not carried out by proxies but by US forces directly. The abortive Arbil raid provoked a dangerous escalation in the confrontation between the US and Iran which ultimately led to the capture of the 15 British sailors and Marines - apparently considered a more vulnerable coalition target than their American comrades."

Not sure if I buy a direct correlation; this may simply be an attempt to hit at America once again. Given our wonderful reputation at this point though, it simply gives more fuel to those in the UK who are pissed at us. Rather sad though that this question is being asked: who's at greater fault, the Iranians who took the hostages or the Americans who provoked them?

4/3/2007 2:44:35 AM

They are already releasing Iranian prisoners: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iran-Diplomat-Seized.html

pwnt

4/3/2007 9:19:32 AM

^^ I hate papers like the independent who jump on the US any time they can....

these people are just dying to see the US reputation in the gutter....and they do all they can to help push that along....

bastards

4/3/2007 9:31:17 AM

yeah doesn't make much since. why would iran capture British soldiers and piss off the UK to get back at the US. you would think if they wanted revenge it would have been US sailors/ soldiers locked up

4/3/2007 9:58:25 AM

They probably figure it would be much harder to deal with the US. They know that we "run the show" of Western influence in the Middle East and by trying to kidnap some of ours they would run into a major conflict, really fast and would be very devastating to them...which is not what they are looking for(right now)...plus, they already know where we stand and what we would do to them.

The Brits on the other hand seem to be there only because they must support the US actions in the region so Iran wants to try and demoralize the British civilian/military/politicians and possibly play them against the US.

Its a classic/typical Persian strategy.

[Edited on April 3, 2007 at 10:40 AM. Reason : .]

4/3/2007 10:38:55 AM

what if iran is just hoping this hostage "crisis" just does to blairs presidency(even though he cant run again right? talking about someone from the same political party as his or something) that it did to carters presidency

and then that way the next person that gets in, in britain, will not be someone that works with the US so closely on "the war on terror"

4/3/2007 4:51:10 PM

Quote :

"I'm not saying to adopt Israeli-like tactics...but I am all about responding with brutal force when someone does something like this...do unto them something worse than they did to you, and do it consistently so that everyone knows that it is never, ever beneficial (and is, in fact, ALWAYS counterproductive) to fuck with you, and that the negotiating table is where things are to be settled."

Well then. If you'd grown up the Middle East, you'd probably either support terrorism or be a terrorist yourself.

It's pleasing to see that the tribal menality remains strong in the West.

4/3/2007 5:04:49 PM

^so kidnapping is ok with you?

4/3/2007 5:06:37 PM

Quote :

"what if iran is just hoping this hostage "crisis" just does to blairs presidency(even though he cant run again right? talking about someone from the same political party as his or something) that it did to carters presidency"

Not really because Blair isn't running again, and his party will win regardless. A very large part, dare I say the majority, of his Labor Party is against the war. Besides, the next largest party after Labor are the Conservatives, and I can't see how it would be in Iran's favor to bring them back into power.

4/3/2007 5:10:30 PM

Quote :

"If you'd grown up the Middle East, you'd probably either support terrorism or be a terrorist yourself. "

you dont know what you talking about. you dont know what about you country maybecause you live here. if you go outside of U.S you understand the proporganda. all lies. no person is terrist but the u.s goverment.

4/3/2007 6:25:59 PM

Quote :

"^so kidnapping is ok with you?"

Yes, yes it is.

Quote :

"you dont know what you talking about. you dont know what about you country maybecause you live here. if you go outside of U.S you understand the proporganda. all lies. no person is terrist but the u.s goverment."

I think you may have missed my point.

4/3/2007 7:31:24 PM

Quote :

"Well then. If you'd grown up the Middle East, you'd probably either support terrorism or be a terrorist yourself. It's pleasing to see that the tribal menality remains strong in the West. "

I think you may have missed MY point. The West has not provoked Iran in any fashion that could be construed as militant, and really has been, I believe, more than reasonable diplomatically. Iran chose to take things to the next, totally unacceptable level. The response should be severe and fierce enough that neither Iran nor anyone else will be quick to consider moves like they made as options at their disposal in the future. They should know that such tactics must be immediately dismissed as wholly counterproductive.

For our part, we have to be consistant on two things:

1. We must be evenhandedly heavyhanded in our response to such behavior. It must be a foregone conclusion that such provocation will result in severe retaliation every single time, regardless of the opposing player.

2. We need to stop giving our enemies the cold shoulder. Like I said earlier, we don't have to make nice, but it's imperative that we engage in dialogue.

4/3/2007 11:01:32 PM

Quote :

"Iran chose to take things to the next, totally unacceptable level. The response should be severe and fierce enough that neither Iran nor anyone else will be quick to consider moves like they made as options at their disposal in the future. They should know that such tactics must be immediately dismissed as wholly counterproductive."

I understand the theory. It's not a new one or an uncommon one. But I don't accept using "brutal force" to send a message.

In theory, such a system could produce good results, but it'd have to be forged out of blood and fire.

4/3/2007 11:15:19 PM

Iran to "free" sailors now

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1259008,00.html

4/4/2007 9:22:41 AM

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is nothing but a clown

4/4/2007 9:41:13 AM

I'm trying to figure out what motivated the Iranians to release them so suddenly. Did they realize that they were losing the political battle in the West and by pardoning the sailors for their "confessions" and thus save face? Or did they score enough PR points that the entire event was a plus for Iran?

It is also interesting too how this event supposedly got very little press coverage in Iran. While they say Iranian Arabic news sources were broadcasting nonstop on the issue, the Farsi language services barely mentioned anything on the entire crisis.

4/4/2007 10:20:37 AM

1) scared up oil prices enough to unload a couple of barrels

2) PR move to prove he isn't "crazy"

4/4/2007 11:14:24 AM

Didn't you read the article? It's an Easter gift.

4/4/2007 11:15:11 AM

^HAHHAHA

4/4/2007 11:21:38 AM

TOO BAD BRITAIN DIDN'T BOMB 15 OF THEIR SHIPS OR THIS COULD HAVE ENDED MUCH BETTER!!!!!!!!!

4/4/2007 1:45:19 PM

they have 15 ships?

4/4/2007 1:47:37 PM

Quote :

"But I don't accept using "brutal force" to send a message. "

Unfortunately, force is the only language that some in the middle east understand.

4/4/2007 1:51:51 PM

god i hate iran so much now..."easter gift"...

4/4/2007 4:15:15 PM